Abstract
The owners/operators of complex assets such as production systems, military equipment and power stations aim to achieve high reliability with financial sustainability over long periods of time, and rely on a combination of internal and external socio-technical support systems to achieve this. Changes in the operational environment and technological advances may stimulate the need/opportunity for innovative reconfiguration of the assets and/or the related support systems. These assets and their support arrangements may be regarded as elements of a broader industry ecosystem. Drawing on analogies with natural ecosystems suggested in the literature, a concept of a service ecosystem is presented. Ten service system, management, engineering and design (SSMED) concepts elaborated by Spohrer and Kwan are represented in operational terms by interlinked networks of actors, of resources and of activities whose interconnections may change dynamically, combined with a business model perspective that indicates why particular configurations might make sense. Six support system case studies illustrate how effective service ecosystems are informed by multiple viewpoints including reliability assurance, business models and linkages with context-specific knowledge networks to stimulate the identification of innovative support solution architectures.
Highlights
Both professional users and the community at large expect that services they use will be provided competently and reliably
Six support system case studies illustrate how effective service ecosystems are informed by multiple viewpoints including reliability assurance, business models and linkages with context-specific knowledge networks to stimulate the identification of innovative support solution architectures
The research question explored here is how do service support systems adapt to assure the reliability of complex assets in a dynamic environment?
Summary
Both professional users and the community at large expect that services they use will be provided competently and reliably. Service providers draw on financial and physical assets to help meet such expectations. Others [2] view the larger entity as a system of systems that may be both interdependent and independent to some extent. This leads to a focus on interaction and connections within both the entities themselves and within their supporting services that may be represented in system architecture descriptions. The research question explored here is how do service support systems adapt to assure the reliability of complex assets in a dynamic environment?
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